The present invention relates to snow vehicles. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with a track for a snow vehicle.
Endless tracks are well known in the art of snow vehicles since they are particularly efficient at propelling a vehicle both on soft and hard snow.
Conventional snowmobiles having relatively wide tracks are also well known and many tracks have been designed for them over the years. These conventional snowmobiles usually have a relatively long seat that allow the snowmobiles to be ridden by two people: a driver and a passenger. This, combined with the fact that snowmobiles are relatively wide and provided with a heavy gasoline powered engine, make them relatively bulky recreational vehicles.
A new type of recreational snow vehicle has been proposed to overcome the bulkiness of the conventional snowmobile. It consists of a relatively narrow single-seater snowmobile type recreational vehicle provided with an equally narrow track.
Such a recreational vehicle is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,006, entitled xe2x80x9cENDLESS BELT DRIVEN CYCLExe2x80x9d, issued on Sep. 23, 1986 to Alvin MOSS et al.. The vehicle proposed by Moss is basically a motorcycle where the front wheel has been replaced with a directing ski and the rear wheel has been replaced with a drive arrangement provided with an endless track.
Moss et al. propose the use of an endless track provided with a plurality of cleats spaced apart along an outer surface of the drive track, wherein each of the cleats extends transversely of the track and has a height, perpendicular to the outer surface of the track which increases from opposite side edges of the outer surface to the longitudinal centerline of the outer surface so that each of the cleats has a convex curved outer peripheral surface.
A major drawback of the track described by Moss et al. is the side to side continuity of the cleats. Indeed, this side to side continuity forces Moss et al. to add outwardly projecting ribs extending transversely of the cleats to counteract the lateral slippage of the drive track. Since the convex cleats are continuous from one side to the other of the track, they act as skis when the vehicle is banked for a turn, thereby decreasing the stability of the vehicle.
According to the present invention, there is provided a track for snow vehicle comprising:
an endless belt provided with an external surface and having a longitudinal axis; the endless belt also having a width delimited by two opposite lateral sides;
a plurality of lug arrangements each including:
a first transverse row of lugs having at least two first lugs mounted to the outer surface of the endless belt;
a second transverse row of lugs having at least two second lugs, the second row of lugs being so mounted to the external surface of the endless belt as to be longitudinally spaced apart from the first row of lugs;
wherein the first lugs and the second lugs are staggered and define a generally smooth convex transverse outer surface.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following non restrictive description of preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.